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Thursday, 28 June 2018

I've always been a writer...

Writing has always been my therapy. From as far back as I can remember, I would write...letters to friends, songs, poems, diaries....I remember writing a poem when I was 11 years old, and my Dad was adamant that I'd copied it from somewhere. When I read it back now I can understand why - I don't know where those words, ideas and thoughts came from. I'm not sure I even understood the meaning behind what I had written - the topic seems far too dark and complex for an 11 year old (living a very sheltered life) to have any semblance of knowledge of...and yet I remember writing it...lying on the wooden floor in my sister's bedroom, in between the bed and window with the light shining through....stopping every now and then to continue to draw a picture ... (of a male model from a 'little black book' of men that had been acquired as a joke present from a gift shop on our seaside holiday...laughing at this now!)

The thing with writing though is that you need space for your thoughts and time for your penmanship. Its why the best blog posts come into your mind as you drop off to sleep, or are in the middle of a shower....not when you are rocking a baby bouncer with one foot whilst simultaneously cooking dinner and trying to dodge the Lego bricks on the floor.

I loved writing letters to family and friends...even as a teenager I had a friend who I would write to every day, adding a little bit here and there and then sending off this big bulk letter at the end of the week. It was a great way to get your thoughts out of your mind, mull over the events of the day and deal with your opinions on certain situations before they all became over crowded in your mind. Is it any wonder I turned to blogging?? I like to think that all of my blogging friends were probably just potential pen pals from back in the day, jotting stuff down and loving the process of putting pen to paper, ideas to ink.

The great thing about blogging is that you choose what to put out there. You decide what is available for others to read and you decide what to keep back. Lots of people assume that as a blogger you detail every little bit of your life, but that's not true at all. There's lots that I don't say, and most I never will.

Like the diary you perhaps kept as a teenager...you write it with the hope that no one else will ever read it...except that's the thing with diaries! Someone always tries to. I remember the day I stopped writing my diary. I was 14 years old. I couldn't bring myself to throw it away, or burn it, or whatever else you are supposed to do to ensure that your thoughts remain private....so I posted it to my friend....a big envelope full of my private thoughts...and I sent it along to her for safe keeping, absolutely confident in the knowledge that she was 100% trustworthy with this little piece of my mind...and you know what, to this very day she is still that person. The one I would send my diary to.

I met her when I was 11 too...perhaps I knew a lot more back then than I gave myself credit for...Sarah x

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4 comments:

Writing is my therapy too. I blog most when life is tough. Life is easier at the moment so I am reading a lot more rather than writing so much of my own stuff. I always have a notebook by my bed to write down random thoughts, or often just my to do list when I wake up in the night. Pen x #ablogginggoodtime

I’m really hoping writing is going to help me with my path to recovery from bipolar. Like you, I was an avid diary writer as a child. I’ve continued that periodically through adulthood. I feel a very strong pull to bring it all together in some kind of writing a I originally wanted to blog, but that has caused conflict with my partner as he is a very private person. I’m thinking I’m going to just write it as a Word document and see where it goes from there. I’m going to a poetry and prose workshop this week in bradford, led by a local poet who used her poetry to recover from an illness. I’m looking forward to it - I’ve never tried writing poetry and wouldn’t know where to begin. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/allevents.in/mobile/amp-event.php%3Fevent_id%3D1000048949266574

This sounds wonderful - I’d live to her how you get on! I love writing poetry but it’s not something I’ve been taught or taken any classes in. It is possible to blog anonymously if that is something you are interested in. Equally you can also keep a blog set to private